


King of the Lunch Crowd

by ALsannan



Category: To All the Boys I've Loved Before Series - Jenny Han, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 07:10:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15881115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALsannan/pseuds/ALsannan
Summary: He’s been psyching himself up all day to break this poor (maybe, slightly, crazy) girl’s heart, and now he feels like he might be the one overreacting?He shouldn’t be relieved when she faints, then freaks out, then jumps him. Objectively, those things are all the actions of someone who's more than a little unhinged.But still. He’s on his elbows, watching the swing of her pony tail as she runs away. Good form, he thinks dazedly. The taste of strawberries is still on his tongue. He thinks…that’s more like it.Peter's POV; some of the things that happen in the movie, and some that didn't





	King of the Lunch Crowd

**Author's Note:**

> This movie is so adorable I am bursting with it.

She runs right past him.

Which…what?

He didn’t come to the track for some sort of dramatic scene or anything like that…but, I mean, if anyone’s going to get dramatic about something, isn’t it the girl who mailed you a handwritten love letter?

He’s been psyching himself up all day to break this poor (maybe, _slightly_ , crazy) girl’s heart, and now he feels like he might be the one overreacting?

He shouldn’t be relieved when she faints, then freaks out, then jumps him. Objectively, those things are all the actions of someone who's more than a little unhinged.

But still. He’s on his elbows, watching the swing of her pony tail as she runs away. _Good form_ , he thinks dazedly. The taste of strawberries is still on his tongue. He thinks… _that’s more like it_.

 

* * *

 

It almost went a totally different way.

When he figured out that he didn’t have a very cute, very delusional stalker ( _seriously_ , who still uses the mail?), he was totally relieved. And embarrassed. Embarassed, also. Which is impressive, really, now that he thinks about it.

He’s not unaware of what it means, to be Peter Kavinsky. No one should believe their own hype but it’s high school. He knows what it means, to be King of the lunch crowd and flip cup, protector of the realm and lacrosse goal. A certain impenetrable charm is his whole appeal. You can’t embarrass _that_ guy.

Unless you're Lara Jean. Lara Jean has embarrassed him today. Twice.

He was going to let her go, forget all about it, but she just had to say it.

It’s not your problem, Peter.

The door alarm chimes while she pulls her bike out of the trunk and he thinks about how many times in his life he’s actually done something crazy. The kids at school would say a lot of times. They’d tell stories about the time he jumped off the roof into the pool, or he broke into the country club to joyride the golf carts, or he and Gen snuck away to make out in the back of the principles' car. They’d say Kavinsky goes to crazy parties, makes crazy goals, gets crazy girls (they’d mean Gen, and they’d mean it in a good way. Mostly.) They’d say you can’t embarrass _that_ guy. They’d say Kavinsky’s not afraid of anything.

Thing is, he’d never, not in a million years, have the guts to write a love letter.

And in a thousand lifetimes, he’s pretty sure he’d never have worked up the nerve to press Lara Jean Covey down onto the track and kiss her until her lips were swollen and her head was fuzzy.

She’s almost to her door when he thinks _screw it_.

It’s not his problem. He wants it to be.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t even realize it, until he’s in the cafeteria one day.

He’s laughing with his friends when he spots her, making her way toward him. He’s already thinking about what he wants to say to her when she sits down—did she go out and buy a new scrunchie last night or did he miss one when he searched her room? Does she know what the peach emoji she sent him in fifth period means? _Is she smiling that smile for him? Is she?_

When she stops in her tracks, he follows her gaze and sees Sanderson giving her one of those wounded puppy looks that seem like the only expression his face can make lately.

The laugh dies in his throat so abruptly, Gen turns around from two tables away.

He’s never been a violent guy. Really. That’s one jock stereotype he’s always been determined to break. But, when he sees Lara Jean blushing, averting her gaze, sees Josh studying the curve of her cheek, the flutter of her eyelashes, he can’t help but think what the lunch tray he’s holding would look like slammed against that guy’s face.

 

* * *

 

It’s amazing how vague a no kissing clause is.

A kiss on the cheek doesn’t count, right? She’s kissed him on the cheek. He has actual, physical evidence in the form of an insta post that cheek kissing is allowed. So, foreheads too? Tip of her nose? Anywhere on her face, just not the lips, or…

He’s pushing it. A hand on her knee while they laugh on the bleachers. One day in front of the lockers he dances her around, spins her out then tugs her in until she’s pressed up against his chest. Neither of them move when the song on Gabe’s phone stops playing. She asks him to untangle the clasp on one of her necklaces and he has it free in a second but that doesn’t stop him from letting the silk of her hair run through his fingers, the pad of his thumb brush against the shell of her ear, the flat of his palm press against the soft skin at the nape of her neck. He doesn’t think he imagines her shiver.

One night, at the diner, Lara Jean is just the slightest bit tipsy off of two beers ( _two beers_ , honestly) and she asks for a sip of his milkshake. A little bit of whip cream catches on her bottom lip. He reaches out to brush it away before he can even think.

Soft lips, sugared.

It’s so quiet in his head he can hear his own heartbeat, tripping over itself.

“Peter. You can’t do stuff like that.”

He pulls his hand back like it’s been burned.

If it were any other girl, if it were Lara Jean a month ago, he would have made a joke, said something charming. Right now, the only word he can think of is _please_.

“You just…you just can’t do stuff like that to me.”

He's surprised, when he works up the nerve to meet her eye and finds she looks the way he feels. Desperate.

He nods and the diner is loud again, chairs scraping back from tables, dishes clattering in the sink. After he drops her off, he sits in his car for a long time, until the lights are out in every house on the block.

 

* * *

  

It’s their first fight, sort of.

Sure, they bicker all the time. And, okay, so she actually yelled at him that time he was twenty minutes late to pick her and Kitty up. And yeah, he did once refuse to text with her for a whole night after she talked through all of fight club. Also, it can’t be their first fight, because they’re not even really a “them."

But, it’s their first fight.

They sit in his car for twenty minutes in front of her house, neither one of them making any attempt to move. Lara Jean turns to him, “Your mom is doing make your own pizza day today.”

She flips the radio to a k pop station when he pulls away from the curb.

He lets his mom have her during dinner, because he can see how much she loves having a girl around to talk to. Gen didn’t really count, because she was always so nervous around his mom--a strange mixture of eager to please and awkward, on _Gen_ , of all people—they never really bonded.

It’s not until later, when they’re on the flowery couch in the spare room and Owen has already gone to bed, that she finally has time for him. She plops down next to him and feeds him a leftover piece of pepperoni. Her fingertips brush his lips. He wants to say, “Covey, you can’t do stuff like this to me.”

He wants to say, “Covey, you can do anything you want to me.”

He doesn’t say anything. He pulls her next to him as he lays back, crooks his elbow to give himself a pillow.

“Peter!” Her laugh is muffled against his chest and he wants to hear it again and again, wants to record the sound so he can keep it in his phone with the picture of her kissing his cheek, one more piece of evidence that this is real, he didn’t dream it, see? See? I know it was.

“I’m sorry about Gen.”

She stills, but doesn’t pull away. His arm comes up, wraps around her, presses her gently to his chest. Her breath evens out.

“Peter, why did you say I was scared? Earlier, in the hallway? What did you mean?”

Lying together like this, her soft weight holding him down, the scent of her coconut shampoo drifting over him, he’s halfway to drifting off with this girl in his arms. This girl, who’s not really his girl, who might never be his girl because he’s an idiot who couldn’t say what he meant, make the leap when he had the chance, an idiot who ended up the fake boyfriend of the only girl who’s ever felt real to him and maybe that’s what makes him admit it out loud.

“I said it because I’m scared.”

She shifts. Rests her chin on her hands, presses further between his legs until she’s flipped over, looking at him.

“Peter. I’m five foot three, soft spoken, and my most physically demanding activity is baking. I’ve never scared anyone in my life.”

He reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.

“You scare me.”

He says the words, and means them, but he means something else too. Worries he might be giving the game away. Hopes he might be, when her expression goes soft.

“I’m terrified of you, Covey.”

 

* * *

 

It’s agony, how close he was.

He throws the duffel he took on the ski trip so hard when he gets home, it tears and the contents spill all over his floor. He sees the edge of his swim trunks, remembers hot skin pressed against him, water swirling, that breathy noise she made when his lips found her throat. He slides down the wall, lands in a heap with his dirty clothes.

It shouldn’t be possible, to go from that to this, in less than twenty four hours. It was only last night he felt like the whole world was opening, like he’d finally found the secret, like suddenly he understood why men fought wars and wrote songs and lived and breathed for the girl,  _this girl_ …

It's dramatic. But he feels dramatic.

He never knew he could want anything so badly until he had her and then _he lost her not even twenty four hours later_.

Because of fucking Genevieve. He had never once, despite all the breaking up and the cheating, the drama and the bullying, hated Gen. He still doesn’t. Not really. But it's close.

He gives himself one more minute to cement the memory in his mind, so he can have it no matter what happens next. The way he felt when he heard her voice behind him. It hadn't mattered that he’d been despairing over her only a second ago. The way that even just standing there she made him feel bigger and lighter and terrified. The look in her eyes when she sat on the edge of the hot tub and took him in. He'd imagined it a thousand times without ever coming close. The way he'd felt his whole body pulling toward her, every nerve ending alive before they’d even touched.

He goes to find his keys.

 

* * *

  

He doesn’t mean to say it.

“You gonna break my heart, Covey?”

She shakes her head, but he’s already leaning in. He doesn't care what the answer is, doesn't care if she says "yes, I’m planning on crushing your heart beneath the heel of my combat boot." It doesn't matter. He’d still be wrapping his arms around her, fitting her against him, kissing her breathless.

He follows her off the field to her truly terrible parking job and laughs until he’s doubled over because he can; because it’s funny and she’s ridiculous and he loves her.

She’s pouting and laughing, grinning too. He can’t help himself. He presses her up against the side of her really, _atrociously_ parked car. Her mouth opens beneath his; tentative, shy. Lara Jean’s kind of shy, which was always bolder than she thought, braver than he could be.

The taste of strawberries is on his tongue. He smiles against her lips. He thinks… _that’s more like it._

 


End file.
